In City’s Trans Fat Ban, a Challenge Fit for a Chef

Michael S. Schwartz, a culinary instructor, made five types of fried chicken. Trans fats or not, all were crispy.

Two days after New York City adopted the nation’s first major municipal ban on all but tiny amounts of artificial trans fats in restaurant cooking, Michael S. Schwartz lined up Crisco, coconut oil, canola oil, peanut oil, butter and lard on a counter.

Mr. Schwartz, a chef who has worked in some of the city’s most celebrated restaurants, including Le Cirque and Osteria del Circo, agreed to conduct a cooking experiment on Thursday at the Institute of Culinary Education, where he is an instructor.

Could he make dishes that are as good, or better, using only the trace amount of trans fats allowed under the city’s new rules? It was a question many of the city’s more than 20,000 restaurants would be wrestling with.

“Personally, I don’t want the government telling me what I can eat,” Mr. Schwartz said, making it clear that he considered the city’s new rule a blow to his civil liberties. Nevertheless, he said, his cooking skills were up to the task.

“For anybody who is trained in food preparation, this is no problem,” he said, as he gathered the ingredients for three varieties of tarte Tatin, an apple tart. Also on his menu this day were five varieties of French fries and fried chicken, each using one of the different oils and shortenings.

Part of the test was to see if Crisco — the only ingredient he was using whose trans fat content exceeds what will be allowed under the new rules — produced a better result in taste, texture or appearance than the other oils and shortenings. The other objective was to find the best trans fat alternative for each dish.

Of course, the scope of Mr. Schwartz’s test was narrow. Commercial kitchens will have to find alternative oils and shortenings that yield consistent results in a large number of their menu items and that are cost efficient.

The rules adopted by the city’s Board of Health are to be phased in. Restaurants will have to eliminate margarines and shortenings that contain more than a trace of trans fats by July 1, and to remove all items from their menus that exceed a limit of a half-gram of trans fat per serving by July 1, 2008. Violators will face fines of at least $200.

The measure has widely been applauded by health advocates, who point to an established link between artificial trans fats and heart disease. But many in the restaurant industry say they fear that they will not be able to replicate dishes that now exceed the limit on trans fats.

Trans fats, derived from partially hydrogenated oils, have been used since Crisco was introduced in 1911. By the 1950s, trans fats were used as an alternative to the saturated fats in butter and in some processed foods, but they became a staple of the American diet with the rise of fast food in the ’70s.

They allow fast-food and other restaurants to use frying oil for longer periods. Some bakeries and restaurants that serve pastries, doughnuts or pies face particular challenges because trans fat shortenings have long been used to maintain a certain texture and appearance. They make pie crusts flaky, cookies crunchy and frosting creamy.

In many cases, trans fats also give baked goods a longer shelf life than those prepared with butter or trans fat-free cooking oils.

Photo

Three varieties of tarte Tatin made with, from left, Crisco, butter and coconut oil. Crisco made the crust flaky, butter made it firm and oil made it crumbly.Credit
Ángel Franco/The New York Times

There are plenty of alternatives, including margarines, shortenings and even a variety of Crisco made without them. The challenge is finding the right one, say those in the restaurant industry.

“The problem with this law, we’re not scientists,” said Joe Bianchi, the owner of Pozzo Pastry Shop in Hell’s Kitchen. “Butter tastes good, there’s no doubt about it, but some cookies become hard when you use only butter, and they don’t have a long shelf life.”

One of Pozzo’s specialties, cannoli, is cooked with trans fat shortening. “It’s less greasy when it’s fried in shortening,” said Mr. Bianchi, who is also the baker at Pozzo. “In regular oil, it comes out feeling wet, and you can feel the fat in your mouth.”

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At Good and Plenty, another restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen, the cookie recipe calls for a blend of butter and margarine that exceeds the amount of trans fats allowed by the city. It will be changed, said Eileen Weinberg, the owner, but not until after the holidays.

“I don’t think that there will be a different taste,” Ms. Weinberg said, but she admitted to some trepidation. “I hope not.”

At the Institute of Culinary Education, which has teaching kitchens on several floors of a building on West 23rd Street, Mr. Schwartz said he would be less confident in his ability to cook with only trace amounts of trans fats if he specialized in pastries.

The tarte Tatin, French fries and fried chicken he prepared on Thursday represented popular menu items that many restaurants will be forced to reformulate under the new city rules.

Mr. Schwartz chose Crisco, butter and coconut oil, which is higher in saturated fat than butter, as the three competing ingredients in his apple tarts. “I can tell you in advance, the Crisco will make a flakier crust,” he said, before removing them from the oven.

He was right. The slightly browned pastry crust made with Crisco was light, flaky and beckoning. By contrast, the tart made with butter had a flatter, firmer and less appealing crust; the one made with coconut oil appeared lumpy, and crumbled under a knife.

Still, when it came to taste, according to a highly unscientific test by Mr. Schwartz and this reporter, the tart made with coconut oil was the best.

Mr. Schwartz’s French fries were made from freshly sliced potatoes prepared in each of the five shortenings and oils. The results were mixed, with the fries cooked in Crisco crispier than the others.

Those made with coconut oil had a particularly succulent taste, perhaps the best of the lot, but were limp. Despite coconut oil’s appeal, it is considered too expensive by some restaurants.

The fried chicken, prepared using each of the ingredients except butter, was the last of the items that Mr. Schwartz ladled from his pots. All five varieties had almost identical crunchy crusts. And each tasted about the same.

In this case, it seemed, Mr. Schwartz showed that fried chicken was one dish open to different preparations. With or without trans fats, it tasted great.

Kim Severson and Rebecca Cathcart contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: In City’s Trans Fat Ban, a Challenge Fit for a Chef. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe